


happy candy sale day

by starlard



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: How is that not a common tag, M/M, Valentine's Day Fluff, accidental date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 08:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17784083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlard/pseuds/starlard
Summary: It's been years since the fiasco that was Stiles' high school experience, two years since he last saw Derek. Stiles is a little surprised that Derek is there to score on the post-Valentine's day candy sales, but great minds think alike, after all.





	happy candy sale day

**Author's Note:**

> It's been so long since I wrote something like WHOA. Because I forgot to give myself deadlines for five months, and can't get anything done without them. Go figure.  
> Please enjoy this last-minute floofy fluff.

“Stiles!”

“Hi, Mrs. Martis!” Stiles said a little wearily, hoping his smile reached his eyes.

It didn’t, apparently. Mrs. Martis’ face wrinkled into affectionate concern. “Oh, you look awful. Rough Valentine’s Day?”

“No, it was great, actually,” said Stiles, casually hiding his basket behind his body. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of his brilliant idea to stock up on candy the day after. It was that he didn’t think Mrs. Martis would appreciate the brilliance and would go straight to _Oh you poor thing._

“Oh, I see.” Mrs. Martis got a sly look on her dimpled, mischievous face. “That’s why you have dark circles under those eyes.”

“Oh, these? No, it’s not…” Actually, Stiles decided not to correct her after all. She didn’t need to know he looked like shit because he was playing Fortnight until four in the morning. 

“Well, I’m just glad you weren’t alone. Whoever they are, they’re lucky to have you.” She patted his shoulder and went on her merry, matronly way.

Stiles stared a little maniacally at the shelves upon shelves of pink and red Reese’s cups. “Well, at least she was gender neutral,” he muttered to himself. Mrs. Martis might be solophobic, but she wasn’t homophobic. Overall, a pretty cool lady. 

Note to self, look up if solophobic was actually a word. 

A soft, amused voice spoke up from his left. “I should’ve known you’d be here buying all the Reese’s.”

He didn’t even have to look at who it was before he started grinning. “I should’ve known you had a sweet tooth after all. It’s not like you can get cavities. When did you get back to Beacon Hills?”

He finally mustered enough gumption to look at the most awe-inspiring eyebrows he’d ever seen in his life, including his own. 

Derek was looking pleased to see him, of all things. Time did strange things to people, for sure. “A couple weeks ago. I didn’t know you were here, or else I would’ve looked you up.”

“Hah! You would not, you giant introvert.”

Derek rolled his head in a way that was charming and showed off every perfect angle of his perfect, stupid face. “I would have offered to help if anything happened, at least.”

Stiles was touched. The poor guy had tried moving away at least four times to get away from Beacon Hills drama, so the fact he was volunteering to help meant… well, something. He’d figure that out later. “Well, fortunately for everybody here, there have been no incidents since New Year’s.”

“New Year’s?” Derek’s eyebrows drew down in tentative alarm.

“Yeah, some Filipino tree spirit was visiting for the holidays and he got freaked out by the fireworks, but we were able to talk him down pretty fast. Actually, he was expecting fireworks, but he was at this party where everybody started breaking out sparklers, and you could see why that would…”

Derek’s eyebrows were drifting higher and higher with his speech.

“Anyway.” Stiles turned back to the candy selection, a little desperately. “All figured out.” No need to babble all over the pretty, Stiles.

“Where are the candy hearts this year?” Derek mercifully changed the subject and turned his laser-sharp focus to the candy aisle.

“What, you didn’t hear? Oh, my gosh, this was all over the news. The company went bankrupt and was bought by another company, and they’re reorganizing everything and had no time to make candy hearts in time for the only time people ever want to eat candy hearts.”

“I’d eat them all the time if I could. I was going to stock up today.”

Stiles would have _almost_ felt sorry for Derek, except—“Ugh, gross. Candy hearts are the gin of candy. Loved by grandmothers all over the world for tasting like those cardboard trees you hang in gross cars.”

“I like gin.” Derek gave Stiles a _look_ then, and it was the dryest, most serious challenge. 

“There’s no reason for you to like gin because one, alcohol doesn’t work on you, and two, you can just go out into the forest and chew on a pine stick for free! And wow, I just figured out why you like candy hearts.”

Derek screwed his mouth to the side in disappointment. “There’s nothing else worth getting here.”

“There’s noth—” Stiles gestured frantically to the half-empty shelf of Reese’s cups in all sizes and shapes. “Okay, now I know you’re messing with me.”

Derek smiled at him hard enough his ears moved, and if that wasn’t the most adorable—

Stiles threw a bag of fun-size Reese’s Pieces into Derek’s basket, telling himself to calm down. Yes, his tolerance level to Derek’s dimples and teeth and sass was worryingly low, due to the fact he hadn’t seen him in almost two years, but come on. Pull yourself together, man. Stiles dated Lydia Martin, _Lydia Martin_ for almost two months. There was no excuse for Stiles to be intimidated by anybody’s intelligence or hotness or force of personality, until the end of time, amen. 

Derek started putting the Reese’s Pieces back on the shelf. “Not a favorite, but thanks.”

Stiles did his best to glare a hole into Derek’s forehead. “Explain yourself.”

“They’re kinda, uh… bland?”

“Oh, wowwww, look who’s the expert on candy now? Okay, I’ll give you that, they’re a little bland _sometimes_ , but have you ever eaten them with popcorn? It’s the most satisfying snack known to _mankind_.” Stiles realized he was overemphasizing in a way that was a little bit too Jim Carey and reined it in. “Especially when you add peanuts and m&ms. It’s the only way to go to the movies. Hey! Wanna see a matinee with me?”

Derek didn’t even pause. “What’s playing?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. Are you in?” Half of Stiles’ brain was still catching up to the fact he’d just asked Derek out on a… not-date. Matinees are not dates.

“Sure.”

“Cool. Cool cool cool cool cool cool.” Stiles pursed his lips, grabbed a few more bags of candy at random, and headed toward the cash register, trying not to freak out.

* * *

They lucked out and watched the Lego Movie 2. They were even the only people in the theater, so they spread out their snacks on the seats around them and kicked their feet up on the chairs in front of them. 

They didn’t silence their cell phones.

They talked through the whole thing.

Until somebody shushed them and they realized they were not, in fact, alone in the theater and had been behaving like giant douchebags.

Derek was bright crimson and super apologetic. 

Stiles just stuffed some popcorn down Derek’s jacket and kicked his ankle until Derek rolled his eyes and loosened up again.

When they walked out, it was five thirty, and Stiles was feeling a little heady from the sugar crash. He didn’t even think of saying no when Derek asked if he wanted to get dinner.

Which is how Stiles ended up going to dinner with Derek Hale.

* * *

They went to a Mexican restaurant and it was just practical to get the couple’s set B, since it had everything they wanted plus free drinks and fried ice cream. 

It wasn’t a date, though, obviously. Stiles’ flannel shirt had a smear of peanut butter on it from the night before, and he would never wear a dirty shirt to a date, so. Nothing to get worked up about.

Stiles found himself telling Derek about his childhood, of all things, of visiting his grandpa in the nursing home and how he had some cousins in Minnesota or something but they’d fallen out of touch.

Derek gave him a surprisingly detailed account of where he’d been the last two years (everywhere in Central America, apparently) and why he came back.

“I realized that it was a definite thing in my mind, settling in Beacon Hills. All of a sudden, I was thinking things like, ‘When I move back’, instead of ‘If’. And once I figured that out, I didn’t want to put it off anymore.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” said Stiles, sending him a smile that was probably too soft and vulnerable but powerless to stop it.

Their eyes caught and held, and Derek smiled back.

* * *

It started raining buckets just before they left the restaurant, so they raced to Derek’s car and dried their faces off the best they could with their t-shirts and the travel pack of tissues Derek had floating around in the back seat.

Derek didn’t get around to turning on the car as they talked about old fights, old friends, old wounds. It was a shock to Stiles to be thinking about his high school years that way, to have so much distance from those days, but he was a college grad, after all. It changed his perspective on some things.

They listened to the rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers, enjoying the patter of raindrops and the way the street lights reflected off the wet asphalt of the street. They hit a lull in the conversation, and Stiles looked at Derek to catch him staring down at his hands with that small smile on his face.

“I’m really glad I ran into you today,” said Derek.

“I am, too.” Stiles wanted to tell him how much, but couldn’t find the words. “Uh, we should do this more often. What about next week?”

“I’d like that.”

Although, having dinner and a movie sounded an awful lot like—

“It’s a date.”

Wait, did Stiles just—

Crap. Craaaaaaap. Stiles did not mean to say that out loud. He turned to the window to hide his dramatic faces of agony. 

“Sounds great.”

Stiles spun around so fast the car rocked. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Derek was blushing, something Stiles never thought he could cause out of anything but embarrassment. 

“Like, a _date_ date?”

Derek reached over and grabbed Stiles’ hand before he said, “What do you think?”

* * *

Nearly one year later, Stiles ran into Mrs. Martis in the parking lot of the same grocery store. True to form, she asked what he was doing for Valentine’s Day.

“Uh, probably nothing. I was just going to stay in and—”

“Oh, that’s a shame. I hope you’re not letting it get you down.”

Stiles smiled down at his grocery bag full of microwave popcorn, Reese’s Pieces, peanuts, and m&ms. Oh, and some gross carnations that he just knew Derek would hate but would be too nice to say anything about. “No, not at all. Besides, I’ve got big plans for the day after.”

**Author's Note:**

> Solophobia is so totally a thing, but there must be a more common word for it, right? Right?


End file.
